Norwegian Cruise Line cancels 2025/26 Cape Town season among other itineraries

Norwegian Cruise Line has cancelled all 11 of the Cape Town cruise departures it had planned aboard Norwegian Dawn for the 2025/26 cruise season.

The cancellation of Norwegian Cruise Line’s Cape Town programme comes along with the cancellation of 27 further cruise itineraries aboard Norwegian Jewel and Norwegian Star in the Caribbean and South America.

The cancellations affect all sailings scheduled to take place between November 2025 and April 2026.

Cancelled cruises onboard the Norwegian Jewel include all the itineraries that were set to depart between November 23rd, 2025, and April 5th, 2026 in the Caribbean.

Cancelled cruises aboard Norwegian Star include the ship’s full season in South America and Antarctica, which featured 11 cruises between November 20th, 2025, and April 14th, 2026.

For Norwegian Dawn, meanwhile, the cancelled cruises cover all departures scheduled between November 2nd, 2025, and April 12th, 2026, meaning that the entirety of her South African season has been impacted.

In addition to a series of cruises from Cape Town and Mauritius, Norwegian Dawn was also scheduled to visit ports in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and more across the 11 affected itineraries.

One of the highlight Cape Town departures for Norwegian Dawn, which has now been cancelled, was her March 12^th, 2025 sailing. The 18-night cruise to Lisbon up the West African coast would have visited a range of lesser-known ports.

The itinerary featured Walvis Bay in Namibia, Luanda in Angola, and the pristine island of Principe in São Tomé and Príncipe. Further highlights included Abidjan, in Ivory Coast, Dakar in Senegal, and two final stops in the Canary Islands at Tenerife and Gran Canaria.

Norwegian Cruise Line has not announced replacement sailings for the ships, or provided any indication of the reason for the cancellations.

According to the cruise line, booked guests will soon receive notification letters outlining the details of the deployment changes.

Guests will be offered a full monetary refund to the original form of payment provided at the time of reservation, while commissions will be protected for all bookings paid in full.

Norwegian will also offer guests a ten percent discount in the form of a Future Cruise Credit (FCC).